The Divine Allegiance gives freedom and the sovereignty of the whole world....
God never made anything so precious as the heart of His Servant, because it is there that He treasured up the wealth of His Wisdom: "I cannot be contained in heaven or earth, but I am contained in the heart of My faithful Servant."
What is Service?—To be resigned to the Divine Will without a murmur. A Servant is he who does not think of wages, and has been liberated from the bonds of desire. He who serves God for wages is the servant of the wages, not of God.
Khwâjâ Hasân Basri says: "Seek the Knowledge that is revealed by Service, and seek the Service that is revealed by Knowledge." Knowledge and Service are equally necessary, but Knowledge is superior, being the root and guide. Hence it is that the Prophet says: "Knowledge rules conduct, and conduct follows it." Again, He says that the sleep of the wise is better than the prayers of the ignorant, and that the ignorant do more evil than good by their acts.—Letters 37-39.
The Sacred Formula.
The disciple should ever practise the formula: "There is no God except Allâh"—vocally or inaudibly, whether he be alone or in company. Let him not for a moment step out of this fort. The fort is made of the negative "no God" and the affirmative "except Allâh" phrases; and it protects the pilgrim entering therein against the two highway robbers: the desire-nature and Satan. When the disciple unfolds the inner eye in the plane of Unity, he transcends affirmation and denial, as they are inconsistent with Unity. Affirmation and denial inhere in the nature of man, and a disciple does not attain to Unity unless he goes beyond human nature. Affirmation and denial are in themselves a form of polytheism, since a valid affirmation and a valid denial each need three elements—the affirmer, the affirmation and the affirmed; the denier, the denial and the denied. When a believer in two is a polytheist, how can a believer in six be a monotheist? When the non-God has no existence, what is to be denied? When thou thyself art not, how canst thou affirm?... This is the zenith of Unity, and the stage of the Perfect Ones.... He who sees with the eye of Unity finds the non-God non-existent....
Whenever Mohammad, transcending the realm of His mission, looked with the inner eye into the realm of Unity, He eagerly and yearningly wished His personality blotted out, the dividing line erased, and the human limitation cast away. But the Compassion of the Beloved would ever intervene, and bring Him back to the realm of His mission for the delivery of the message.—Letter 40.